Sneak Peek

This weekend I've been doing some work on the quilt in progress.  Here's a sneak peek at how it will eventually look on our bed.

The part that covers the mattress is finished, quilted and with the borders around three sides.  In the mirror you can see the right side panel.  That will have the same border at the bottom.

At the left side and the foot of the bed you can see what I have to do yet.  The blocks have to be made and sewn together, then quilted.  After that I will attach those two pieces to what is here and sew on the outer borders which will edge the quilt on all four sides.  Then I will quilt a design in the inner and outer borders, probably leaves, as that seems to be a "theme" in our home as you can see from the wall at the head of the bed.  Those leaves were all stencilled on that wall, one at a time, a six-hour job.

Sticking out from under the new partial quilt is the hand appliquéd, hand quilted Pennsylvania Dutch quilt that has been our "bedspread" since January of 1997.  It is beginning to fall apart, and this new quilt will replace it.  Underneath that scalloped edge is our "summer" quilt, which tops the winter duvet that I made a few years ago, which happens to be invisible in this picture.  We've had such a cold winter that we resorted to using the winter duvet and the summer quilt together to keep us warm enough.

I'm very happy with how the new quilt is turning out, but a little daunted by how much work remains to be done.

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day arrived at our house yesterday when
Jim came home from town with this lovely surprise:

I'm very blessed with a loving, devoted husband, a good man!

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you, too!

News Flash!

Sighted this afternoon in Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Flight Behavior, the use of the word "were" as a SUBJUNCTIVE!!!!

Long thought to be extinct in modern prose the extremely rare, though perfectly delightful, SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD of the verb "to be" is to be found in the bottom line of print on page 236!!!

Let's all give three cheers and root for the return of the subjunctive mood!

Update

Jim's been home a week and a half now, and I can see gradual improvement happening.  We went to the pacemaker clinic this past Wednesday, and were introduced to some of the wonders of modern technology.  The nurse technician, by placing a device about the size of a computer mouse over the implanted pacemaker can find out minute by minute, day by day what his heart has done since the implant.

There have been times when he felt very dizzy and nauseous, and the readout confirmed that they were times when his heart was in atrial fibrillation.  There were some lengthy episodes, one of 14 hours and one of 19.  He is taking a daily medication that is supposed to prevent that.  My hope is that this situation will improve as the medication takes hold.

He must wear buttoned shirts for the first six weeks, as he should not lift his left arm over his shoulder.  His favourite daily wear is a long sleeved turtle neck tee shirt, and he had only one buttoned flannel shirt.  All his other buttoned shirts are simple cotton dress shirts.  My solution: make him another flannel shirt.  He's wearing his new shirt in this picture.  I'm very happy with how it turned out, and also happy that all of the fabric even the dressy snaps came from my "stash"!

I'm contemplating making him a third shirt, to ease the laundry situation.  But I'm also anxious to get back to the quilt I was working on.  What shall I choose?

Stag Party

Around 11 a.m. Jim called me to have a look at these magnificent stags, browsing on the Nanking Cherry bushes at the back of the garden beds.  That's o.k.  They won't harm these bushes too badly.

When I looked closer I saw there were actually four stags there.

Something must have disturbed them, or perhaps they had enough of a snack for now.  They have turned away and are leaving, for now.  But they will be back!







Afternoon tea time is the ladies' turn.  I have to admit that they are appealing.  However, deer do a great deal of damage to our landscape over winter.  We've lost several fruit trees and Scots Pine to their habit of stripping bark in the winter.

When I opened the back door and barked at them, I was surprised to find there were six deer back there, both does and stags, busy denuding the landscape.

I find barking like a dog is the only way to get them to move away from the garden.  Doesn't help for long, though.  They just move to the shelter belt and are back in a few minutes, chomping away.

Anyone for some fresh venison?

Country Cottage

Each year our local quilt club members make a "club quilt" for a fund raiser.  Each person who participates pays $25 and makes at least one block of the chosen pattern.  This year's pattern is "Country Cottages."  At the end of the season a draw is made and one lucky quilter goes home with the quilt top, ready to finish.

We were given a square of muslim for a foundation and a piece of sky for background.  The rest of the fabrics come from our stashes.

I just finished my square a few minutes ago.  Here it is:

I wanted to make a little sign called "Grammilou's Garden" but couldn't find a good place to tack it on.  Each block needs to be signed, therefore the writing on the wall of the "cottage."

I don't really care for this pattern.  If I win the quilt, I will raffle it off and donate the money to the club.

A little update on the Dear One: he is still at the hospital.  I'm anticipating a call some time today letting me know that I can pick him up and bring him home.  Today is the first day that I didn't do major spring cleaning to occupy myself.  The quilt square took precedence, plus, I'm getting a little tired of cleaning.  Love the result, but don't relish the process.

Quite the Week

Quite the month, actually.  It started off with a bang, literally, when Jim blacked out in the kitchen and fell flat on the floor, giving himself a good goose egg on the back of his head.  That was on January 1.  I called 911 and the EMTs came with the ambulance and hauled him off to the ER in town here.

Several tests later the Dr. was unable to say why he had blacked out.  He was still very pale, very weak, and not fully present.  They took him by ambulance to Red Deer for a CT scan of his head, but that was all clear so he came back, and I retrieved him from the hospital at 12:30 a.m of Jan.2.

Since then there have been several bouts of dizziness and nausea.  He wore a 24 hour heart monitor that showed irregular heartbeats.  Our Dr. made an appointment for him with a cardiologist in Red Deer, and also for a stress test and echocardiogram.  The results showed atrial fibrillation, but for the rest, the heart looks good.

Tuesday was the day he saw the cardiologist and was put on a list for a pacemaker implant.  Tuesday evening he had another severe attack and spent the night in the ER here in town.

Wednesday we were told that the appointment for the pacemaker would be March 6!  I told the nurse that he couldn't possibly wait that long and that he had spent the night in the ER.  She got the information from this hospital and later in the morning phoned back that he should come into Red Deer hospital the next morning and be admitted.

Thursday they admitted him and said that he might have to wait until Monday for the pacemaker, but that he would be cared for until then.  Late Thursday afternoon a nurse phoned that he had had the pacemaker implanted and was doing well.

Friday he phoned and said he'd had a terrible night with racing heart rate and sweating.  Apparently one of the wires is not in the proper position.  So he was supposed to go back to the OR and have that repositioned.  It didn't happen because the OR was too busy to get him in.  So he is spending the weekend resting in the hospital, for which we are both very thankful.  It's pretty scary to have him at home when he has one of those attacks and have to rush him to the hospital here.

I hope he gets taken care of on Monday so he can come home again on Tuesday.  And I hope that that's the start of feeling much better for him.  Now that we know what's going on, we can look back and see many times when this was probably happening.  He doesn't actually feel his heart racing, he just feels dizzy, nauseous and very awful.

I'm very grateful to all the doctors, nurses, lab technicians, ward clerks, cleaners and everyone else who creates the health care system, which we find does work when you really need it!